AIDS drug price-hike boss Martin Shkreli arrested in US
By Will Stroude
Martin Shkreli, the controversial businessman who sparked outrage after jacking up the price of a drug used to trear AIDS patients by 5000%, has reportedly been arrested in the US on fraud charges.
The Turing Pharmaceuticals CEO, who quickly dubbed ‘the most hated man in America’ in September when his company bought the rights to a drug used to treat AIDS patients and increasing the price from $13.50 per pill to $750, has been arrested over unrelated allegations that he committed securities fraud at a biotechnology firm he founded back in 2011, Bloomberg reports.
Prosecutors have charged the 32-year-old with illegally taking stock from Retrophin Inc. and using it pay off debts from unrelated business dealings. He was previously ousted from the company, where he’d been chief executive officer, and sued by its board.
The current federal charges and potential regulatory action could see the businessman – who recently admitted he wished he’d raised the drug’s price even more – banned from running a public company in the future.
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